ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP Review

Introduction:

Today NVIDIA is launching the new GTX 650 Ti line of graphics cards! This card is intended to fill the gap left between the GTX 650 and GTX 660 released back in September. The competition it is designed to beat is the AMD HD 7770. The core has ~2.54 billion transistors on a 28nm fabrication process. It contains 768 CUDA processor cores and four SMX units, 64 texture units, and 16 ROP units. This design does not use GPU Boost like higher models. Reference clock speeds are 925MHz core and 5400MHz memory. The card is able to support up to four outputs and the reference design is only 5.65” in length. Power consumption is low as indicated by the single 6-pin PCIe power connector; it is rated at 110W TDP. Memory consists of 1GB of GDDR5, with a 128-bit memory bus.

ASUS comes out strong with a DirectCU II TOP variant; this card is the best from ASUS for this model. It is equipped with the DirectCU II high performance heat sink and comes factory overclocked to 1033MHz! Features such as the DIGI+ VRM power the card and reduce power transfer loss while, increasing efficiency. Super Alloy Power technology is used on the card meaning that more efficient chokes, capacitors, MOSFETs, and other components are used to increase lifespan and performance while reducing temperatures. ASUS bundles its Voltage Tweak overclocking software for even more speed — core voltage and frequency, memory frequency, and fan speed profiles can be adjusted! All of these features combine to hopefully allow this card to overclock well.

Closer Look:

The front of the box has three intense glowing red claw marks going through what looks to be a textured surface. The box itself is completely smooth. At the top left are the ASUS brand and part of the card model: DirectCU II TOP edition. This card is the top dog of the ASUS GTX 650 Ti line and operates at an overclocked speed of 1033MHz core! To the left is a picture describing what the DirectCU II heat sink looks like. The whole bottom half lists some of the key features — TOP Overclocked Edition, 1GB of GDDR5 memory, DIGI+ VRM and Super Alloy Power components, and GPU Voltage Tweak real-time graphics tuning software. The back of the box is dedicated to specifications and features of the card. The left side clearly shows which outputs are supported through imaging and labeling. One HDMI and two DVI ports, along with a VGA port, are the provided outputs. The DirectCU II heat sink has three flattened copper heatpipes that make direct contact with the GPU core for improved cooling performance. The right side explains the DIGI+ VRM & Super Alloy Power combination as reducing power noise by 30%, enhance power efficiency 15%, and increase stability and longevity by 2.5x. The bottom has 12 different translations of the basic specifications.

The sides of the box match except one has a picture of the DirectCU II heat sink while the other has part of the NVIDIA logo. Both sides clearly state that this is an ASUS GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP. The bottom has two features listed — TOP Overclocked Edition and DIGI+ VRM Super Alloy Power Stable Overclocking. The top of the box is similar to the sides and front, reiterating the model name and key features. The bottom has the recommended system requirements listed in 12 languages. A bar code sticker is at the bottom right and has the Serial and Part numbers, UPC, and EAN.

Inside the main box is a smaller box that has some texture. The ASUS logo is on each box in gold. The smaller box contains the driver disk and manual. To the right is a block of foam that is there to keep the accessories box from shifting around. Lifting these up reveals the graphics card safely protected by the antistatic bag and thick foam around and under it.